Card games are a popular form of entertainment whether they are played in the home or in public card rooms and casinos. Typically, card games are played on a table or other type of suitable surface. In general, the attributes of the tables, mainly their surfaces and edges, are important features in the suitability of the table to playing card games. The types of tables used in public card rooms and casinos have evolved into being superior pieces of equipment for the purposes of playing card games and posses key attributes. Tables such as kitchen tables, however, usually lack these key attributes.
Casino card tables posses four main attributes that make them ideal surfaces for playing card games. These attributes are: (1) a playing surface that is (a) a fabric texture, and (b) padded; and (2) a perimeter rail that is (a) elevated above the playing surface, and (b) soft. These four attributes each make a unique and vital contribution to enjoyment of the game. A fabric texture covering the playing surface provides the optimal level of friction to allow cards to slide freely along the playing surface while at the same time slowing their velocity so they eventually come to rest without outside intervention. The padding below the fabric covering dampens impact when solid articles of the game are placed or thrown into the center of the table, and also reduces noise. The elevated perimeter rail serves as a boundary around the playing surface that helps to contain the articles of the card game and prevent them from falling on the floor, and in a like fashion it prevents articles from being wrongfully introduced to the card game and thus helps to prevent cheating. The elevation of the perimeter rail is designed to position players forearms and hands in an optimal position for the retrieval, and manipulation of cards and other articles of the game. The softness of the perimeter rail makes it a comfortable place to rest your arms and hands. The combined benefit of these attributes is that they each contribute to making the mechanics of distributing and retrieving cards and other articles of the game easier and more efficient, and add to the comfort and enjoyment of the game.
There are two specific areas of need that this invention proposes to address. First, the home card player has a need for a table that can possess the superior playing attributes of a casino card table, while also being temporary, inexpensive and easy to stow. Second, the casino or public card room has a need due to the increasing popularity of tournament poker. The nature of tournament poker is that an ever increasing and often unpredictable number of people may show up for a tournament. The casino then needs to have a means of readily increasing the number of tables they can deploy on short notice, and these tables need to posses the four key attributes described above.
Prior art does exist in the field of this invention, but none of the examples of that art can solve each and every problem that are solved by the scope of this invention. Casino poker tables are widely known and readily available and they contain the four attributes outlined above as vital to the enjoyment of a card game, but they are a permanent fixture. They are constructed by placing a piece of plywood surface on top of a leg or base structure. The plywood surface is covered with a sheet of foam rubber and a sheet of fabric which is stapled in place. The rail is an assembly comprised of a rigid, one-piece wooden frame that is the size of the entire perimeter of the plywood playing surface. The rail has thick foam which is covered by a thin vinyl or leather sheet that is wrapped around the rail and stapled in place. The rail assembly is placed on top of the table. The standard casino card table can not be disassembled and stored very easily, and they are costly.
Some inventions have been created to solve the problem of a temporary card playing surface. These inventions accomplish this by way of a folding table design that is slightly compactable, but can still be quite large, heavy and hard to transport or stow. These designs also lack one or more of the four key attributes, previously stated above, that have become state of the art for permanent casino card table: a cloth-covered playing surface, padding below the cloth cover, an elevated perimeter rail and a soft edge border. In addition, many of these types of inventions are a completely separate and additional piece of furniture and do not take advantage of the usefulness afforded a table that a person may already possess.